Dec 30, 201212:53PM

I need to keep mentioning this because it's important: If you aren't well-trained in a subject, it's dangerous and foolish to try to legislate it. Consider all the internet "equality" and "freedom" and "safety" acts to come out of Congress.

One of the items during so-called "Assault Weapon Ban," is being bandied about for renewal—a ban on "high capacity clips," by which the proponents mean a ban on standard capacity magazines that they don’t like—because 30 round has been standard for AK rifles for 65 years and for AR rifles for 45 years, for example.

Here's the problems:

The military regards magazines as expendable. It's desirable to hang onto them and bring them back, but in combat, or even a field exercise, it's expected that some will get dropped and lost. During an engagement, one should be shooting, communicating, moving and reloading. "Remembering to secure your partial or empty magazine and stow it back in a pouch somewhere" is a dangerous pain in the ass.

But of course, while there was a civilian ban on new mags in effect, they had to be controlled items, and completely accounted for. So this law did, in fact, hinder military combat readiness.

Of course, billions of existing magazines were grandfathered and in existence. So new standard magazines had to be marked with a date and "military and police" or similar nomenclature. And so did guns during that time.

Here's the wrench in the works: When the ban went away, millions of mags could be and were surplus sold, as were millions of guns. All of them marked "military/LE use only," but perfectly legal for civilians.

So, if there's a new round of restrictions, there will have to be a new round of dates stamped on things, and a new round of "ILLEGAL" markings. In the meantime, some states still have restrictions and their own markings. Which means there will be an entire catalog of markings to determine what is legal and what isn't.

So, you can expect lots of stuff to slip through the cracks, and lots of people to get falsely accused/detained/arrested/have their property confiscated due to misreading of marks. It's also entirely possible most cops will just say, "Fuck it" and not bother, especially as one pretty much has to have the magazine in hand to read the marks.

And of course, once again, the military will be required to account for an expendable item as a controlled item, which means troops will be learning to retain their mags rather than engage the enemy.

Given the billions of grandfathered mags, and the millions more being sold every day right now, in case there is such a restriction, it will have no effect whatsoever on crime.

BTW, I said in 1994 that the ban would have no effect, and I was right. When it expired in 2004, and there were screams of "Blood will run in the streets!" I said nothing would happen, and I was right.

Why did it even exist in the first place?

Charles Krauthammer was at least honest: "The claim of the [ban's] advocates that banning these 19 types of 'assault weapons' will reduce the crime rate is laughable," he wrote. "Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents daren't enunciate. . . . Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity (sic) of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic -- purely symbolic -- move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. . . . The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first. . . .Yes, in the end America must follow the way of other democracies and disarm. . . . The passionate resistance to even the phony gun control of the assault weapons ban shows how far we have to go."

The purpose is to define an acceptable level of control over a civil right.